CGS 1100 General Notes

In this course, students will use the college's to submit assigned work, take assessments, and communicate with your instructor. Many instructors also employ additional web-based resources to post notes, study guides and practice exercises. Your instructor posts such materials on his own web site at:

In case of access problems, he also maintains a backup (duplicate) of this web site at:

The can serve as a main portal to all of these sites, as they all contain links to each other. You are advised to periodically review the posted class syllabus for your section of the course to ensure that you have not forgotten any important course requirements and to view the class schedule of reading assignments and project deadlines and exam dates.

Hardware and Software Issues:

• You do not have to acquire any software for your personal computers to participate in this course. Your choice of which software you have installed on your computer(s) depends on how much of the course work you want to be able to do ouside of the classroom. Understand that you will be able to do some (perhaps most) of your course work in class or outside of class in one of the college computer labs. All of our labs have the same software that is installed in our classroom. But that will depend on how quickly you work and learn the course content.
• If you want to acquire the latest version of Windows for your home computer, the IRSC Bookstore has arranged with Microsoft to sell Windows 7 for $24.95 (plus tax), which represents a substantial discount under retail pricing. This is the fully licensed 32-bit version. But understand that you are not required to purchase this software for the class.
• If you want to install Office 2010 on your own computer to ensure maximum compatibility with the software that you will be using on college computers, then you are advised to acquire your software from the IRSC Bookstore. It sells the entire Office 2011 suite for $24.95 (plus tax), which represents a discount of around 90% under retail pricing. This is a fully licensed version. If you are considering installing this new software, speak with your instructor first. It is also wise to call the IRSC Bookstore before going there to confirm that they have the software in stock. The main number for the bookstore is 772-462-7700. They can give you the number for the bookstore on other campuses.
• When practicing or working on a project away from home, be careful to save your work on your own storage media rather than on a remote computer. Storage locations such as the My Documents folder on the college computers are likely to be overwritten by other students during other class sessions. If you do save your file to folder on a remote computer, remember to copy them to your own media before you finish your work session. If you do not have any media with you, try using a free Web-based email service (such as Gmail® or Hotmail®) to send a copy of your work to yourself. If you need to attach more than one file to an email, then you should copy them into a compressed ("zipped") archive and attach it instead.

How to learn in this course:

An "average" student should expect to spend as much time studying course material outside of class as the course meets each week. Students are encouraged to employ a combination of the following learning methods:

• Attend each full class meeting to observe classroom demonstrations and participate in discussions of course content. You are STRONGLY encouraged to take notes in class. The act of writing concepts down helps you to remember them. You are welcome to use a voice recorder for this purpose if you prefer. Re-writing and reorganizing your notes helps you to set the concepts firmly in your mind.
• Read the textbook and do the review questions at the end of each chapter before the class meeting in which that chapter is covered.
• Do textbook exercises until you develop proficiency using the software. One way to determine proficiency is to complete some of the projects at the end of each chapter.
• Use the publisher's student resource site for the chapter(s) being covered in class each week. A link to this site can be found on the course home page.
• Browse and select appropriate Microsoft Office Tutorial Links related to the topics being covered in the current chapter(s) each week.
• Review the exam study guide posted on the class web site and ask any questions at the class review.

When working on the hands-on exercises in the text:

• Remember that the objective of the exercises is to gain knowledge and experience. It is not to simply get through each chapter as quickly as possible. First read about the steps that you are about to perform. Then try them. Then stop and consider what you've learned.
• You might discover that the computers in our classrooms and labs are configured differently than other computers that you use to practice. The college has disabled some features that are likely to cause problems for students. Therefore, you may find that some of the exercises in the book do not work on college computers. If this happens, continue your reading, but skip the keyboard steps for that exercise in the book.
• Although the authors have gone to great lengths to eliminate any errors in their textbook, you might encounter one occasionally. If you think that you have, review your previous steps and try them again. If they still don't seem to work, note the problem in you book and skip ahead to the next steps that do seem to work.
• Whenever the textbook instructs you to print something, don't. Let's save some trees. Read about the process of printing, but instead of clicking on the OK button when instructed to print, click on the Cancel button instead.
• If you are still in the middle of an exercise when a class session is over, make a note (where you can find it easily) of what page your were on in the book and the name of any data file and/or folder that you were using at the time. Then save the file and log out of Windows.
• Don't forget to switch-off the monitor screen of your computer system when you are done. It does not turn off automatically with the processor.

Course Textbook

The textbook serves as a framework for the course curriculum and bare minimal reading. Students are expected to also make use of the plentiful online tutorial and reference resources such as those listed on the Microsoft Office Tutorial Links page.

Online Web Resources

Two primary web sites will be used in this course:

• One belongs to your instructor. It can be found on the Web at . It contains reference material related to the course that is used both by distance learning students and F2F students in a typical computer classroom setting. The page that you are now reading resides on that site. An emergency duplicate of the instructor's site has also been established in case the first site is inaccessible. It can be found at . Students are advised to bookmark both sites in their web browser software's Favorite Places list. For help with this, see the web page "HowTo: Find your way back to valued locations on the Web".
• The other primary web site belongs to the college. The college located at provides an online "virtual classroom" (or "eLearning environment") to allow students to access college and course resources 24 hours-a-day via the Internet. It contains links to the instructor's web site, a course calendar, a closed email system, and a discussion forum to allow student-to-student/teacher interaction. The system also provides online quiz capabilities and student grade reporting features.

Interaction

Because the college prefers that all classes be delivered through a common system, your instructor has linked many of the instructional resources on his web site to the college online server, which is controlled by a software package named As such, students will encounter frequent links between the college online server and pages on the instructor's web server. These links are written in such a way that they open a new browsing window to view the alternate site, leaving the starting site in the original window for easy return.

Student Access

Every student registered in this course is given an account on the . Accounts are established for students on this server automatically based on their college course registration information. Students who register late or add a course should expect a delay (of a day or two) before their account is active. Instructions related to accessing these password-protected web-based accounts can be found on the page. This page includes instructions for contacting IRSC support personnel for assistance using the system. If you need assistance with course content rather than using the online server, contact your instructor instead.

Student Activities Online Using the Virtual Classroom

Students should login to the regularly to perform class activities and check for messages from their instructor. After logging in, students should see a list of links to the home pages for each IRSC course that they are taking that has a page on the server. Typically, a student will click on the link to a course to retrieve its home page. All of the features mentioned above will be accessible from a simple menu of icons representing system features (called "course tools") displayed on along the top of that home page.

Understand that each instructor defines which features will be available in each class, so you might notice differences from other online classes. Web-based help is available from any screen by clicking on the "?" (question mark) icon located on the left side of the screen.

Attendance

The has a system for tracking student attendance based on their entry of a PIN code announced by the instructor during each class session. You should login to the Course page on the and enter the PIN code in the Attendance textbox at the bottom of the page. If you fail to record your attendance or miss class, contact your instructor.

Email

One of the major advantages of using the online server for communication between students and instructors is offered by its closed email system. Only users' accounts on the online system can send and receive email. This effectively eliminates spam (unwanted clutter or junk mail). It also restricts users from receiving any mail from outside of the online system. The fact that everyone uses the same Web-based email system makes it easier to provide technical support to users. As such, all email sent to you by your instructor will be sent via the online server (unless it is "down" for some reason). Similarly, you are requested to send all email related to this course to your instructor via the Communicate tab on the rather than to his college email address (unless the online server is inaccessible). Whenever new unread email is waiting for a student, an email (envelope) icon will appear under the course link on the initial course listing screen.

Course Calendar

The normally includes a calendar tool that instructors can populate with assignment deadlines and quiz dates. In Professor Gibson's courses, the "Calendar" tab at the top of the screen servers as a link to a complete course schedule published at the bottom of the course syllabus on his web site.

Discussion Forums

The provides a group conferencing tool that it refers to as "Discussion Forums" similar to an old electronic bulletin board system (BBS). It allows class participants (students and instructor) to post questions or comments that can be viewed by all other participants. Readers can either post public replies or email private ones to the authors. This tools allows "threads" of discussion to take place, based on each original message posted. The posted threads are organized into a few named groups called "forums" that will be used in our class for different purposes as follows:

• Instructor's Notes to Students - used by your instructor to post class announcements or notes intended for all students. Replies are not expected, but will be accepted if students want clarification.
• Question & Answer Forum - used by students to ask questions of the instructor that might benefit the entire class. This topic acts like the typical classroom forum for questions and answers available in most F2F classrooms. Students should check this area regularly to see if any answers have been posted that would benefit them.
• Other topics (discussion groups) may be added as necessary or requested, so watch for them.

Whenever new unread discussion message is posted, a red-on-yellow push-pin icon will appear under the course link on the Home screen. After a student has entered a Discussion forum, new unread message subject titles will appear listed in boldface.

Projects

Course projects are described in detail on the instructor's web site and are accessible from either the or the course home page or the Course Schedule section of your course syllabus. You are expected to have developed proficiency using course software prior to attempting each project by doing textbook exercises from the related chapter(s). The includes screen objects called "drop box" that can be used to access each project's instructions and to submit any required files. The project drop boxes are listed under the Lessons tab within your course page. Step-by-step directions for using Angel drop boxes can be found at:
http://howto/onlinesubm.html. See the course projects page for instructions related to submitting class projects.

Assessments

Course assessments (exams) are typically delivered in the classroom using the . Assessments administered on campus must be taken using a college computer. Student computers and software may not be used for assessments administered on campus.

Students must know their usernames and passwords to take each assessment and should have successfully logged into the server at least once before taking the first assessment. Be sure that you set aside enough time to take each quiz in one sitting, as you will have only one attempt. There is typically a 90 minute time limit on each quiz. If you have not taken an online assessment using Angel before, you are advised to review the "Taking an Assessment" section of the Angel Student Reference Guide at:

     http://elearnhelp.irsc.edu/sramos/Student_Guides/pdf/Taking%20an%20Assessment.pdf

During each quiz availability period, click on the Lessons tab and select (click on) the title of the assessment (such as "Quiz 1" to open a new window containing the quiz. Review this window and click on the button labeled Begin Now. NOTE: You must have pop-up blockers disabled in you web browser to take an assessment. Because the assessment has a time limit, you will first see a screen advising you of this. Click the Continue button to proceed. A new window will open displaying each question one-at-a-time. Maximize this window. For each question, select the best answer by clicking in the circular radio push button in front of it AND then press the Next > button below that question. You will be able to back up to view previously answered questions until your quiz is submitted. When you have answered all of the questions, press the button labeled Submit found at the bottom of the window.

Don't worry if technical difficulties arise. We will deal with them. Be sure to notify me immediately if you have any problems. Most students say that the quiz interface is fairly easy to understand and use.

Checking Grades

To view grades in Angel:

1. Click on the Report tab.
2. Find the Category drop-list under the Choose Report area and select: Grades
3. Click the Run button in the lower right-hand corner.

A report showing all assignment and assessment scores should appear. Quiz scores should appear automatically after the quiz period has expired, but the system does occassionally require manual attention by the instructor. So, if your quiz score has not appeared shortly after the end of the quiz period, notify your instructor.

Account Termination

The high storage demand required on the online server each semester might require the college to terminate class accounts near the end of the standard college final exam period (which can be found listed on the ). It is important that you complete end-of-term assignments and preserve (print or copy) any information that you want from the server before this time.

You are advised to review this page periodically to avoid mistakes and maintain effective control over your online course. For more information, contact your instructor.